Joy to the World - GNU Tube

Joy to the world the Lord has come!
let earth receive her king,
let every heart prepare him room
and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven, and heaven and nature sing!

Joy to the earth the saviour reigns!
let songs be heard on high,
while fields and streams and hills and plains
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness,
the wonders of his love,
the wonders of his love,
the wonders, wonders of his love.

As well as being a prolific hymn writer, the nonconformist Isaac Watts wrote a textbook on “Logic: or, the Right use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth, with a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as Well as in the Sciences”. He is better known for his contributions to the metrical psalter – “original songs of Christian experience”.

This tune, “Antioch”, is generally used for the carol. It is often attributed to George Frederick Handel (1685–1759) on the grounds of a ‘chance resemblance’ to choruses in the Messiah, not least because a theme of the refrain (And heaven and nature sing…) appears similar to the orchestral opening and accompaniment of the recitative ‘Comfort ye’. Likewise, the first four notes seem to match the beginning of ‘Lift up your heads O ye gates’. However, there is no autographed score by Handel and no documentary evidence to suggest that Handel wrote it.